


What's Your Damage?

by ChandlersDemon



Category: Heathers (1988), Heathers: The Musical - Murphy & O'Keefe
Genre: Chansaw, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, One-Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2018-02-28
Packaged: 2019-03-24 23:38:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13821876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChandlersDemon/pseuds/ChandlersDemon
Summary: Upon waking up, she turned to her side, frozen in her tracks.Veronica had been able to help everyone in her life, that's because they wanted to, but the one person she wanted to help the most just wouldn't let her.





	What's Your Damage?

_"Don't you fucking dare!"_

_Watching the girl clad in blue, for once in her life, Heather Chandler, was helpless._  
_She could only stand and curse at the air and watch as her best friend..._  
_Her lover, tied a noose in the closet._

 _JD screamed outside her door and Heather shook her head as she screamed at the top of her lungs._  
_What she would give to be able to touch the girl again, to hold her in her arms.._  
_To go back in time and tell her what was right and what had been wrong..._  
_To go back in time and save her from the man banging outside her door..._  
_To go back in time and tell her that she should've been her's all along._

_"Veronica, please! Don't do this!"_

_Watching the girl get up onto a chair, Heather pulled at the noose, her hand going straight through the bed sheets.  
She began to cough violently on drain cleaner as tears filled her eyes, the taste making her gag as she could feel her breath leaving her as it had that night..._

_Falling to her knees, the thick blue liquid poured from her mouth as her cries went unheard.  
Her breath leaving her as she grabbed at her own throat, tears sliding down her cheeks as she heard the snap of a neck and watched Veronica let out a pained choke as she took her last breath._

_The door busted open, and everything went black._

* * *

Icy grey eyes shot open as a scream left the blonde's mouth and entered the dark room.  
Cold sweat clung to her forehead and she could feel tears slip down her cheeks as she pushed the blankets aside.  
Beside her, movement could be felt and it wasn't long before she heard the tired voice that broke her pained breaths.

"Heather?" 

Upon hearing the girl's voice, Heather closed her eyes.  
Sitting on the edge of the bed, her eyes opened as she looked out at the moon. Its rays shown in through the curtains, staining her skin in shades of whites and grays.   
Silence ensued as she let out a shaky breath.  
She couldn't face Veronica..   
Not now...

"Heather?" 

The voice sounded once more and Heather bit the inside of her mouth as she continued to look out the window.   
Her look stoic as she dropped her gaze to the floor below.   
The last thing she needed was to feel Veronica's sympathy, to gain her pity.  
Heather didn't want that.  
Heather Chandler doesn't need people's pity, nor their sympathy.  
Heather Chandler doesn't want their pity or their sympathy. 

"Heather..?" 

She could feel the dip in the mattress behind her as the girl's knees came to rest gently against her lower back.   
Tensing was all the blonde did as she bit back the urge to whip around and push the girl away.  
The urge had come out of nowhere and a part of her hated herself for the thought, but another part of her knew why she had been so used to doing the action. Why it had always been her go to for getting her out of a situation in which she didn't want someone to touch her.   
She never asked Veronica to be there, she didn't want her there...  
Not now..  
Not like this...

"Heather..." 

Hearing her name for the fourth time, Heather let out a soft sigh as she used her index finger to wipe beneath her eyes.  
She forced out a laugh that was weaker than she would have liked, needing it to back up her next words as she spoke them quietly.  
The blonde was never one to show weakness, not to anyone.  
Heather never saw herself showing weakness to the girl who fell head over heels for her, literally.

"You sound like a broken record." 

It was all she could muster in that moment.  
Her bitchy tone absent as she continued to wipe beneath her eyes, hoping that in the darkness, Veronica couldn't tell she had been crying.  
Her voice was hoarse, quiet, and crackly from her scream that had torn through the night.  
Straining he vocal cords had definitely not been on that early morning's agenda. 

"Here I was hoping you were slumped over, dead." 

Veronica let the words leave her mouth, a smirk on her lips as a small chuckle followed them.  
She had been oblivious to the way the girl before her had winced in the darkness.  
It wasn't until she watched Heather's head drop that a frown replaced the smirk the brunette formally wore. 

Heather wasn't one to show vulnerability.  
In that moment, that's just exactly what she was doing.  
She felt vulnerable, helpless.   
The dream played over and over again in her mind and all she could picture was the one she loved hanging from a noose.   
It wasn't what she had pictured herself waking up to..

Veronica sighed as she watched the back of the girl's head, her breaths quiet as she slowly shifted her weight on her knees.   
This wasn't the first time she had been abruptly woken by the Demon Queen's screams.  
It was the third time this week that Heather had screamed into the night, breaking the peaceful silence that normally adorned the big room.  
Veronica knew little of why the girl woke up screaming, but she could assume.  
These nightmares must have been something personal, Heather would never tell her, and Veronica knew better than to pry for an answer.  
Prying Heather Chandler for an answer she didn't want to give was something Veronica had learned to never do at the beginning of her walk with the Heathers, after that, it was easy sailing.  
Assuming the worst of these dreams was what Veronica had simply come to do, cursing under her breath every time she were to hear the blonde sob in the night.  
Assuming was all she could do...   
But the number one thing you never want to do with Heather Chandler,   
is assume. 

"Surprise. I'm still here." 

The weak sarcasm in Heather's voice, and the way she ran her hand through her hair in what Veronica deemed frustration, she couldn't stop herself as she moved forward to allow her arms to drape over the girl's shoulders.  
Wrapping her arms around the girl's neck, she rose herself up a little bit, feeling their skin connect.  
The only thing they wore had been the hickeys and bites from the night before, their skin still on fire as they touched.  
Feeling Heather tense beneath her, Veronica didn't stop the sigh that left her lips.  
She came to rest her head gently against Heather's, her warm breaths cascading across the blonde's scalp.  
Veronica came to smile softly at the way Heather seemed to relax under her touch, how the older girl seemed to melt back into her.   
She could still feel the way her shoulder's tensed when Veronica breathed too heavily, but in that moment that's what they had become. 

"You know I don't mean that, Heather." 

Veronica came to rest a small kiss on the girl's soft blonde curls.   
Breathing in softly, the scent of floral shampoo filled her nose and a sigh left the brunette.  
She almost felt stupid for her words.  
She hadn't known how the blonde had felt in that moment.  
She knew she had screamed, but... 

_Fuck..._

In that moment, all Veronica wanted was to know that Heather was okay.  
She didn't like that the girl she loved was in so much pain.   
She didn't like that she could do nothing about it.   
Veronica wanted to help Heather in anyway she could, but Heather simply just wasn't letting her in.

Heather let the silence play out.  
Her silver eyes locked on the full moon outside, watching birds that would occasionally fly by, casting a shadow through the window.  
The night was so peaceful.  
Or at least it had been.  
Heather had been so content that night, enjoying her time with the brunette, loving every minute of it.  
That was while they had been awake.  
If she hadn't been so exhausted after their nightly activities she would've forced herself to stay awake.  
It seemed that every night she was in the company of the brunette, these nightmares occurred.   
She believed that tonight would be different.  
She would've passed out and fallen asleep dreamless..  
Of course, that didn't happen.   
Something had snapped in Heather's mind in that moment.  
The realization that the Demon Queen of Westerburg shows no pain.  
Sheds no tears..  
Her tone gained a venomous hint ass she nearly hissed her words out into the cold air around them, cutting it like ice.

"No fucking shit." 

Immediately, Heather felt regret flood over her as she felt the weight of the brunette's head be taken off of her own.  
The warmth of the body behind her disappear into the night.  
Her eyes clouded over in pain that no one could see, only she would know how much emotion her own orbs held.  
How her soul was slowly fading away into the abyss she had only just managed to pull it out of.  
What made Heather regret her decision to snap at Veronica even more, was when she no longer felt the girl move on the bed behind her.  
The urge to turn around and yell at the girl to hold her once more played through her mind, but her heart froze in its own beat.

Veronica knelt down before the blonde, her brown gaze full of concern that she knew the blonde more than likely couldn't see through the dark of the night.  
She wanted Heather to look at her.   
To look into her eyes and know that she was there for her, yet, Veronica knew that that wouldn't happen.  
Heather was stubborn, Veronica was too.   
Heather was a lot more stubborn than Veronica was, and when it came to being hurt, their ideas of comfort were clearly different. 

All Heather did was continue to stare out the window, paying no mind to the girl's eyes at that burned her own.   
While she wasn't directly looking at her, she could feel the girl's gaze somehow connecting with her own through the night.  
Heather couldn't see her lover's caring gaze in the dark, she didn't want to see Veronica's caring gaze.  
She avoided it for her own personal reasons she had yet to give the brunette.  
She knew she'd break sooner or later, and she wasn't ready to deal with her own personal consequences for when she did.

"Heather... You screamed." 

In that moment, Heather snapped. 

"Wow, Ronnie. You have ears. You can hear! Holy shit, it's a fucking miracle!" 

The girl's hands connected with her thighs as she had thrown them in the air, shaking her head as Veronica could see the roll of the girl's steel colored eyes.  
Heather's tone had risen more than Veronica would have liked, but she had known why.  
She let out a breath she hadn't realized she had been holding as Heather had snapped at her.  
It pained her to hear the girl's harsh tone at that moment, but she knew that it was the girl's way of putting her walls back up.  
Veronica knew sh was trying to cover up her fears.  
To somehow prove to her through her false anger that she was perfectly fine.  
To cover up the fact that she was slowly breaking down, piece by piece.   
Veronica knew Heather wasn't okay.  
She understood that Heather didn't want her to know that she wasn't okay, but Veronica gave up on keeping boundaries with the blonde.  
What the blonde didn't want her to know hurt her more than it could ever possibly hurt the blonde.  
The way she would wake up screaming, crying into her shoulder till she fell back asleep, it fucking hurt.  
Veronica knew Heather didn't know that...  
But sometimes she wondered if she even cared to know..

Something drove her in that moment as Veronica slowly took Heather's hand in the darkness.  
She closed her eyes and bit back her whine as the blonde pulled her hand away, but nonetheless she remained strong.  
She wouldn't let Heather see the tear that flew down her cheek in that moment.  
Veronica needed to be strong.  
She needed to be strong for Heather.. For herself..   
Heather needed her now more than ever, but Veronica couldn't stop the words she forced out.

"Yeah, Heather. I can hear.. I can hear you.. Every night.. I can hear you scream every night, Heather.. And," 

Heather's eyes began to water as she continued to look at the moon.  
Her head shook back and forth as she felt tears slowly begin to fly down her cheeks.  
She blinked slowly, a frown now evident in her features as she brought her hand up to cover her mouth as she began to silently sob.  
She didn't want to break.  
Not now,  
Not here.  
She wasn't meant to cry.  
She was meant to be strong, that's what she made herself out to be.  
The Demon Queen of Westerburg never once shed a tear, not in school..   
Not to anyone..  
But behind closed doors..  
Maybe it was time to let her walls fall.

The pained whisper that left Veronica next pained her even more as she felt the brunette place her fingers beneath her chin, guiding her gaze to look right back into the girl's mocha brown eyes.  
The moon's rays painted against their sorrowful expressions, revealing that both of them were just as hurt as the other.  
Showing them that they weren't alone in the pain that they felt. 

"And it fucking hurts..." 

Losing all of her strength to remain quiet, in that moment it felt like a weight had been lifted off of her shoulders.  
Heather let out a cry, and she wasn't quiet with it at all.  
Arms came to wrap around her tightly as the blonde let her cries echo off the walls in the room.  
Her head resting in the crook of Veronica's neck as the brunette's hand came to run through her hair soothingly. 

"It's okay..." 

Veronica shook her head as she kissed the girl's head, continuing to run her hand through the girl's hair.  
She knew that none of this was okay, but in that moment, she let herself believe it was.  
She needed to push through this and be strong for Heather.   
These nightly sessions needed to stop..  
She hated seeing her cry.  
She hated hearing her cry...

Heather knew she would never be okay.  
Her head shook in the crook of Veronica's neck as she went to speak, choking on her own words as she hyperventilated.  
Her head dug further into the girl's neck, her hot, uneven, breaths running along the girl's skin, feeling like a fire heading through a forest.  
None of this was okay.  
For once Heather allowed herself to repeat those words in her head.  
It wasn't okay.  
These nightmares weren't okay.  
Seeing Veronica hang herself,  
Feeling herself choke on drain cleaner,   
It wasn't okay.   
Her words came out shaky, barely audible as she choked here and there.

"I-It's n-not okay. S-Seeing-Seeing you.. Fuck.." 

Heather whined into Veronica's ear as she held her tightly, a death grip around the girl as if she would disappear at any moment.  
She knew that the nightmares were just nightmares, but the way they felt, the way they seemed, it made them feel real.  
How she came to choke on draino, or why JD was screaming outside of Veronica's door, she wouldn't know.  
In those moments she recalled how she had died before, how she was a mere ghost in her own dreams, a spirit.  
She had no control over these reoccurring nightmares, Heather slowly started to believe they were the future.  
That it was a sign.

Veronica continued to shake her head, shushing the girl gently as she came to run her hand up and down the girl's bare back, sighing as she would feel the girl shake and shiver under her touch.  
This wasn't okay..  
Veronica had no way of knowing why Heather wouldn't let her in.  
She was Heather Chandler after all, the mythic bitch of Westerburg, but...   
To Veronica, she was loving.  
A bitch, yet her lover.  
She knew her limits when it came to the ruthless blonde, yet, she knew when she could test the waters with her.  
It seemed as though now would be one of those times, but as Heather's cries slowly began to die down and turned into whimpers and small whines and coughs, she let a small sigh out as she kissed the top of the girl's forehead, closing her eyes as she spoke her final words for the night.

_"It's okay, Heather.. I'm right here.. I'm not going anywhere, Heather.. I promise."_


End file.
